


Love from Death's Touch

by Dr_of_Warfare



Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game), Original Work
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-11
Updated: 2020-02-11
Packaged: 2021-02-27 20:55:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22602055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dr_of_Warfare/pseuds/Dr_of_Warfare
Summary: This is a story of a young necromancer protecting the ones she loves, regardless of the outlook of such dark magic. Lady Helga is the seventh daughter and the ninth child of a family of elves. She remains home with her father to ensure his illness does not claim him but when a human army threatens the world and her brothers are called away, the young silvan elf is caught in between helping the home and helping the family. So she takes the mantle of her own making and secretly summons armies of her own undead in order to ensure not only the safety of the kingdoms the humans attempt to topple but her own family.
Kudos: 1





	1. In Which Black and White Can Still Be Pure.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [BC_The_Potato](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BC_The_Potato/gifts).



The puss spewed out from her father’s mouth, clumping on the blankets that covered him. Elan tried pushing her away but he lacked the strength, making her job much easier. She tipped the netty pot up into his nose while holding his head, the water draining along with more blood and puss. Helga refrained from vomiting and used her magic to ease anything else that could be clinging to his body. She didn’t stop until Elan could finally breathe well, or able to speak at least. 

Lady Helga took the sheets and stripped hem while the servants replaced them in an instance. She left the room and threw them into the furnace that was situated to burn anything infected. The smoke went up into the chimney, and a dark cloud sputtered into the skies before dispersing and becoming invisible. Helga cleaned her arms of the blood and infection, trying to keep her hands from wiping away the tears in her eyes. She didn’t stop scrubbing until she felt her mother touch her shoulder, turning and hugging her. 

‘Shh, my darling star, it’s okay,” cooed her mother. “You did amazingly. I’ve known more experienced healers to go and wretch in the middle of such intensity.”

Helga didn’t know whether to consider that a compliment or statement, so she tried thinking more of what was going on in the room next to theirs. In there, her father’s illness had become worse in the night. His muscle has been eaten away, leaving him frail and weak to other illnesses. Helga understood the symptoms to mean a form of _Dragon Pox_ , a deadly disease that could kill a man through suffocation by mucus and infection in the lungs and nasal passages. The clerics in the next room were suppressing the second illness. She’s been focusing on the first, hoping that by getting rid of it will weaken the second. 

Helga parted from her mother, using her now clean hands to clear her eyes before picking up her wand and heading to the next room. Lady Maria tried to stop her but the young elf was too quick, and she was back in her father’s room. The servants have cleaned the linens and Lord Elan seems to have calmed down in his coughing. Now he lay there, wheezing and whispering. Helga held the wand tightly in her hands and cleared the room, telling the servants to do some tasks that ultimately would do little but kept them busy. She latched the door and stood by her father’s side. There he looked so small she could have picked him up and carried him a dozen laps in the garden, not at all the lord that had smashed blades against the human kingdom, spreading so fiercely and threatening all other kingdoms with extinction. 

Elan looked up at his daughter, tears in his eyes but a smile of red and yellow teeth, some of the missing and others broken. He reached for her hand, and she took him, kneeling down to his ear. 

“Father, I’ve tried all the things that the healers have taught me. No plants in the books or in our forests can cure this curse. I’m sorry…” She did not cry, but she stopped so Elan could understand what that meant. He only took a few seconds before nodding, whispering back into her own ear. 

“But I know you did not leave for a week to only come and give me such ill news… You’re scared of telling me though, I can feel it in your eyes… Please, do not be. If I am to die, then so be it. I will not have my darling star to be fearful of making a suggestion because the healers would not agree.” Elan gave a wry, painful smile before turning and coughing into the bedsheets. Helga felt as though an anvil had dropped on her. She almost felt silly, but she had every right to be scared of suggesting such a dark process to a man of faith. Necromancy, even if legal, is disliked by most whenever to put next to the thought of healing. So she breathed and began her explanation.

“I’ve been studying necromancy with my druidic magic, and I believe that with alchemy and my magic I can heal you. Only… I will not subject you to a process without your consent. If you believe it will be nothing in the end, please father, tell me now.”

“Helga, if you think it’ll do more than the plants in our forest, I trust you enough with it. Only… do not tell your mother. She will not bode well if she learns.” Elan chuckles, coughing even more. Helga felt relief caress her heart, and she waved her wand, making blue hands appear and bring them over to her, situating them in the order she needed them. She mixed her potions and cast her spells, and within the hour she held the elixir that should save her father’s life. Or so she prayed to Leah that it would. 

Her hands shook as she set her father up, giving the bottle to him so he may drink, and sat behind him. Elan leaned back a little, rubbing the top of her head, giving a warm smile. Even though all the pain he was feeling, he did not want her to be scared of the outcome. He placed the vial to his lips and let it drain down into his mouth, shuttering as he swallowed. 

Helga began her spell work, focusing on the black and yellow mark on the middle of his back, where the curse had touched him. She deduced it was a combination of a _Spectral Hand_ and a _Touch of Emfeeblment_ , basic arcane spells but empowered with high amounts of mana. She wrapped her face with a _Veil of Empowerment_ and put two rings that would strengthen her ritual. 

“Leah, give me the strength to heal my father, even with such cruel magic.” He took her knife and sliced deeply into her hand, gasping in pain and rubbing her blood into the spot, speaking the elvish spells she learned so well. She searched his body for the source and stopped just above his heart, a dark aura clinging to his heart. She felt her potion spread from Elan’s stomach and spread through every muscle in his body. She manipulated it to center into his heart, slowing it, slowing it… until it stopped. 

Helga’s mind would have gone to panic if she did not practice this so often on animals the past week. She focused now on the aura, casting the spell _Remove Curse_. She continued this while moving his blood through his body and into his brain… she was moving too slow. The curse would not move, and she could not move the blood without focusing so much on it. She began sweating, cursing out loudly and was beginning to tire, the veil getting caught on her lips from how hard she was breathing. She ripped it off and screamed in anger and fear.

She heard a knock and the door opened. She feared it was her mother but found one of the healing servants standing in the door frame. She looked scared, and when she saw Elan slumped down with Helga covered in blood, she ran inside with healing magic at the ready. Helga sighed in relief. 

“Angelina, his heart stopped and blood isn’t flowing. I need you to focus on his blood flow while I try and start up his heart!” Angelina nodded and got to work on his blood flow. 

Helga now could focus on the curse. She replaced the veil and began her ritual. Once did not work, nor did twice, but the third time, she ripped it from his flesh and it writhed in her hand. She leaped from the bed and took a salt solution, pouring it onto the curse and dispelled the magic. 

Angelina kept up the blood flow until Helga started up Elan’s heart. He gasped to life, holding his breast in pain. Helga laid him back, calming him until he fell back to sleep. Helga took the servant outside and closed the door, turning to her with a dark look.

Angelina looked uncomfortable, but almost screamed the Helga grabbed her by her dress and brought her down to her face, glaring, black lightning circling her left hand. “Not a word to anybody, Angelina. You know what I was doing, and if anybody else does I know why.”

“I-I wouldn’t dream of it, m’lady! I swear nobody will know!” 

Helga did not release immediately. She opened the door and made the motion for the elf girl to leave. “I had better not.”


	2. Chapter 2

This is a story I wrote for my character's mother. I initially wrote a small essay going over her life so it painted a clearer picture for my DM, but I felt that was a disservice to such a badass woman. This takes place over three hundred years before the campaign, so you won't be seeing any other characters. All of this is my own works with permission to write it using some aspects of the universe of their world. 

I hope you enjoy Lady Helga, the Black Elf's tale of protection of the family, friends, and eventually, her lover.


End file.
